List of Attacks

The Myth:

Pagans were the
First to Draw Blood
in their Conflict with
Muslims at Mecca

"Our Prophet (peace be upon him)
and his followers were always peaceful
[at Mecca], despite suffering unprovoked abuse and attacks by the polytheists"

The Truth:

The Muslims
were actually the first to resort to physical violence when Sa’d bin Abu Waqqas
picked up a camel’s jawbone and struck a local polytheist who was “rudely
interrupting” his group of praying Muslims. "This was the first
blood to be shed in Islam"(Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 166).

The new
converts were quite aggressive, particularly when they could get away with it,
which was the misfortune of others. An example is when one of the
strongest Muslims, Hamza, struck a Meccan leader by the name of Abu Jahl
‘violently” with his bow for speaking in an insulting way to Muhammad:

When he
got to the mosque [Hamza] saw [Abu Jahl] sitting among the people, and went up
to him until he stood over him, when he lifted up his bow and struck him a
violent blow with it, saying, 'Will you insult him when I follow his religion,
and say what he says? Hit me back if you can!' (Ibn
Ishaq/Hisham
185).

Although
Abu Jahl did not retaliate against the more powerful man at the time, he later
mistreated his Muslim slaves, almost certainly as a consequence of his public
humiliation.

The Muslims
would later be the first to declare war at Mecca, and were subsequently evicted.
Even then, they were the first to renew hostilities as Muhammad ordered
deadly raids
against Quraish merchant caravans from his new home in Medina.

As it turned out, the man who was the first to draw blood against the Quraish at Mecca
was later the first to shoot an arrow at them after hijra, during one of the first raids:

The party went as far as a well in Hijaz below Thaniyyat
al-Murra, where he met a large contingent of Quraysh. There was no engagement
with them, however, except that Sa'd b. Aha Waqqas did that day cast one
arrow. That was the first arrow shot for God's cause after the coming of Islam. (Ibn Kathir v.2 p.235)